Fault tolerance technology is directed to making a system resistant to failure. A common technique to implement fault tolerance is to provide redundancy for critical elements in a device or network. For example, if a communications link between network nodes fails then backup links may be available to carry re-routed traffic around the failed link. In this manner, operations may continue with reduced interruptions. This may also be true for elements within a network device, such as a router or switch. There are a number of critical elements that may merit having backup elements to provide redundancy in the case of failure. Some network devices, however, may be so complex as to require special techniques to manage fail-over to redundant elements. Consequently, there may be need for improvements in such techniques to improve fault tolerance in a device or network.